


Turning Tides

by sulasass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Everyone Is Gay, Friendship, Gay, Harry Potter Next Generation, Multi, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulasass/pseuds/sulasass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is starting a new year of Hogwarts. So are Hugo, Albus, James, Lily, Roxanne, Dominique, Louis, Scorpius and the rest of the gang. Same old? Not really. This is the year of more complications and changes when it comes to teenage affiliated issues. Bless teen drama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just A Lot of Staring

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse the rambling and everything else due to the fact that I haven't written HP stuff in a very long time. 
> 
> Let me know what you're thinking.
> 
> Disclaimer: I obviously do not own any of these characters.

Turning Tides

 

Just a lot of staring

 

_Feeding the Flame_

 

The beginning of sixth year for Rose Weasley began like it usually did with saying goodbye to her parents who insisted on still dropping her off at the platform and later nagging her younger brother with a difference of three years to finish off his Summer homework on the train, but this year was actually going to be completely different for her and her friends.

This year would be the year where her and her family would find themselves love, new people to hate, things to sell, mistakes to make and irritate the absolute shit out of each other, but that’s over the course of a whole year.

“Let me take a wild guess and say you’ve still got half of your homework to get through?” She asked her brother, moving along the corridor to look for one of her friends and/or cousins.

“Three-quarters,” He said with a grimace, expecting a telling off from Rose who simply sighed.

“I am not helping you,” She replied sternly, stopping and turning to Hugo.

“I know, I’m going to get Lily to help.” Hugo said with a shrug, before Rose shook her head and continued to walk down the corridor.

“Well, you look out for her and I’ll look out for --”

“Rose!” Her eyes widened as she realized Louis, who was in the year above her, was standing before her. She didn’t have time to reply though as Louis brought her into a bear hug.

“Hugo,” He said, still grinning. “I thought I saw you shuffling along here, we’re in here.”

“Does ‘we’ include Lily?” Hugo asked hopefully, eyeing who was in the carriage. Louis checked inside the carriage, as if he had forgotten who exactly was inside, turning back to Hugo with a shake of his head.

“I won’t be sticking around then.” Rose folded her arms, giving her brother a disapproving look.

“ _What_?” Hugo asked, looking offended by her stare. He continued walking along the corridor, ignoring the fact that Rose was still staring at the back of him.

“Wait, so who is this guy you’ve been seeing over summer?” Rose heard Albus saying this and decided to finally enter the carriage where several of her cousins and her very best friend, Esmeralda Gremler sat. She sat next to the window and opposite her was Albus. Next to her was a very bored looking James, who was situated next to Molly. On the other side was Fred and Louis took the seat next to him.

Rose was hoping someone would be able to move up, because she was doing a fantastic job of it right now, but there was a slightly knotting of her stomach of what was to come when they reached Hogwarts and to be left alone for any length of time would send her into a spiral of panic.

Molly glanced up from her book, realizing Rose had entered and there was no seat for her. “You can take my seat… I’ve got to go for my Head Girl meeting anyway.”

“Are you sure, Mol-?” Rose’s question drifted off, as Molly simply shrunk out of the carriage as she continued talking. Rose stared off at her wondering if it was just ‘one of those Molly things’.

‘One of Those Molly Things’, or OoTMT for a confusing abbreviation, was something Rose and some of the others had come up with when they simply couldn’t explain Molly’s actions, including things such as skulking out of rooms, managing to sit in on conversations and not contribute with a single sentence in the space of three hours and not laughing at a single one of their very funny jokes. It possibly originated from being OoTPT (One of Those Percy - her Dad - Things).

“ROSIE!” Came the shout of Esmeralda, who looked certainly relieved at Rose entering. As soon as Molly stood up, Esmeralda shoved James so he would move to the far side of the seat. “Save me from your cousin.”

“There are only cousins here.” James commented in a deadpan voice, as he got comfortable once more after Esmeralda’s vicious shove. He opened up his book with a shake of his head. Rose was slightly taken aback by the fact that James was not being the leading voice in this conversation and was reading? This was something she had rarely seen James do prior to this, but was brought back to the current matter at hand as her best friend threw her arm around her dramatically.

Esmeralda rolled her eyes, “I’m sure she knows who.”

It was true Rose knew exactly who she meant. The smirk on Albus’ face would have been explanation enough, yet he always took joy out of causing trouble with Esme.

Esme and Albus always acted like this. Albus couldn’t resist be a cocky little git to her and Esme couldn’t resist be a loud-mouthed violent person to him.

“Me? I was only asking a simple question.” Albus said innocently enough, which caused Rose to smile as she knew exactly where this was going.

“Please will you two refrain from --”

“You still haven’t answered it by the way.” Albus nonchalantly, yet persistently reminded, completely ignoring Rose.

Rose often felt like an invisible person when Albus and Esme were interacting. A swift glance at the rest of her family showed that she wasn’t the only one who felt like that either. They were all invisible when Esme and Albus decided to argue with each other.

“He’s nobody _you_ know.” Esmeralda said with a scowl.

“Well, that’s not right… I know everyone.” Albus leaned back, crossing one of his legs over the other in an overly-casual way that was obviously irritating Esmeralda.

“Forget it, Potter!”

“Seriously, Gremlin? Look just answer the question and I’ll leave you alone.”

“He won’t,” Rose and James said in unison, both struggling to hide their sighs.

James still had his nose in his book, but with this response to Albus it was becoming clearer that he wasn’t actually reading. Fred and Louis stared on with little amused faces, knowing that no pranks or jokes ever had to be told when Albus and Esme were getting into a big, old argument; all you needed to do was feed the flame for a fun time for the whole family to enjoy.

“I know,”

“Albus, are you only just discovering the fact that Esmeralda has a boyfriend?” Fred asked in mock shock, his face turning into pure delight as he saw Albus’ quick-changing expression.

Consider the flame fed.

“ _Boyfriend_? I thought this was just a Summer fling?”

“Well, is it really a summer fling if it starts before the summer?” That earned Rose a smack on the arm from Esmeralda and got all the others much more interested in the matter than they were mere seconds ago.

“Shall we make this a game?” Fred suggested with a mischievous smile.

“No!” Esme snapped, crossing her arms and giving her signature thunderous look.

“Yes,” Another slap from Esmeralda. “I know everything about the mystery boyfriend, so I can play for her.”

Yet another smack.

“You know smacking me is what got you in to this trouble in the first place?” Rose tried to say this in the most playful way, whilst rubbing her painful arm in the most inconspicuous manner. She got scared that Esme would realize how strong she actually was one day and use it for evil, instead of good… Well, the somewhat good that she currently served.

“I just slapped you when you agreed to this game.”

“Ah, the memory loss due to violent outrages… I forgot Esmeralda suffered from that.” Louis commented from the sidelines, slouching further into his seat as he got ready for the game ahead.

“You slapped me three times!”

“Once,” Esme defended, seeming slightly too nonchalant with her response for anyone to actually believe that.

“It was actually three times…” James remarked, sitting more forward in his seat and finally giving up on the pretense of reading.

“Fine, it couldn’t have been more than twice.”

“Definitely three,” Fred supplied, with a laugh.

“You slapped her as soon as she revealed that you had been dating this guy since before summer… Can we please get on with the fucking game?” Albus asked, not liking the fact that everyone was forgetting the game they were supposed to be playing. Esmeralda responded by folding her arms and looking out the window.

“Okay, so he goes to Hogwarts?” Fred asked, as Rose gave a careful glance to Esmeralda.

“Yes…” Rose could feel Esme’s glare burning a hole in her face, so she turned to her with a pleading expression. “I don’t even know how you kept it a secret for so long… And I wasn’t aware you two were secretly dating?”

“We’re not; I just don’t see why they all get to find out _before_ the gossip spreads?”

“Because we’re your friends?” Louis asked, not as good as the others at keeping up with jokes, thus failing to hide the slight hurt in his voice.

“Well, he’s not.” She said, scowling in Albus’ direction yet again.

“Slytherin?” Albus asked, ignoring Esme’s scowl and smiling in a very pleasant manner at her.

“Why is that your first guess?”

“Seems like your type to be honest.”

“Hufflepuff?” Esme snorted at this question, refusing to give an answer.

“Ravenclaw?”

“Name one male Ravenclaw who isn’t boring as fuck?”

“Uhh… Me?” Louis asked, the hurt now extremely clear in his voice. Rose gave him a sympathetic pat on his lap, mouthing ‘She doesn’t mean it’, as Esmeralda expressed no apology.

“So it’s a Gryffindor?” Albus asked.

 “How did you guess? By methods of deduction perhaps?” Esme asked sarcastically.

“What year is he in?”

“Seventh,” Rose answered. Esmeralda turned her head towards her with the slowest movement, making sure Rose could see the anger in her face with painful intensity.

“Well, now you’ve made it far too easy.” Albus said, cracking his knuckles as he thought about it whilst Esme raised an eyebrow.

“Well, guessing it’s not Fred or James.”

“Unless I’ve kept it a secret for all this time…” James commented in a slightly conspiratorial voice, rubbing his hands together with a mock laugh that was quickly cut off.

“Esme?” All heads turned to the door of the carriage as seventh year student, Kyle Hedley, stood at the carriage door.

“I was going to guess that,” Albus said through gritted teeth as Esme hopped off her seat and walked towards Kyle with a smile. He immediately brought her into a tight embrace, kissing her softly in front of everyone else. This gathered a round of ‘UGH’ and ‘YUCK’ noises from the gang that sat in the carriage, apart from Rose who smiled fondly at the picture before her.

Rose had always been a not-so-secret romantic. She tried to never talk about boys or anything and always played off relationships, saying she would be forever single, but she always wanted to experience a world of romantic gestures and sweet nothings and cute dates to Hogsmeade… And that’s all that love and relationships were in her head. It sounded like the greatest damn thing, but she felt eternally doomed to be single as everyone else her age had at least gathered some kind of interest from the opposite sex.

And she hadn’t. Definitely hadn’t. Nobody. Nope.  

“You boys are all immature which is why you’ve never gotten a solitary date in your lives,” She said, pulling away from her welcoming kiss with Kyle to give the boys a particularly smug look.  

“Uhh… apart from me?” Louis asked, shaking his head in confusion at the fact that Esmeralda appeared to know so little about him. Esme had the grace to look a little ashamed at the fact that she had forgotten about that.

“Err… right, because you’ve been in a long-term relationship for the past year. Sorry.” She gave a small shrug, before linking her hand with Kyle’s. “Anyway -,”

“And I’ve been on dates!” Albus suddenly blurted out, looking extremely pissed off.

“Oh yes, I remember that one date you went on in Hogsmeade and the girl vowed to bat bogey hex you if you ever spoke to her again. How could I let that slip my mind?” Esmeralda said, her smile growing wider and wider the further she got with her sentence. She curtseyed before swaying out the room dramatically.

“Give it a month.” Fred commented, as soon as Esmeralda had shut the compartment door behind her.

“A week,” James supplied, looking bored once more.

“A day; how can you spend more than that amount of time with Gremlin?” Albus said, still scowling at where Esme had just been.

“Come on, boys! I think her and Kyle are cute. Extremely cute!”

Fred, James and Albus all stared at her. Rose returned this with a surprised expression, but as they continued to stare with their blank expressions, she gave a defeated sigh.

“Fine. Till Christmas break, I guess.”

Rose should technically have felt awful about betting on how long her best friend’s relationship would last, but she also felt like she was totally justified for knowing this wouldn’t last long. Rose had been there through all of Esmeralda’s different boy obsessions and there had been a lot. Saying Esme was boy-crazy would be a slight understatement – she loved them, yet hated them. She saw herself as a hugely independent witch, but also needed some male attention when she wanted it.

Rose knew every single boy that Esme had liked, sadly some of these being her family members, and every single boy she had kissed, again sadly one of these being a family member, and dated, thankfully none of these being her family members.

Sure, she had never been in anything official as Kyle, but the reason why Esme was boy crazy and never just ‘one boy crazy’? Boredom.

She was easily bored and so this was never going to last.

“I just can’t believe she couldn’t remember that I’ve been in a relationship for a year!”

  
_Noticeable_

 

“Chlo, we need to just stop right now!”

Chloe Li, ever the obedient one to Dominique’s wishes, stopped right there. However she raised an eyebrow and pulled her cutest, most quizzical expression to let Dom know that she needed more of a reason to continue standing there.

“Are we really going to talk about you making Gertrude McGimmons cry right now?” Chloe asked, after she couldn’t take watching Dominique breathing in the forest air in a deeply spiritual fashion for another second.

“No, besides she always cries! This is the last first time we’ll ever walk up to the carriages.” Dominique explained, slightly irritated that she even had to explain herself, as surely this information should be known.

“Oh, how are we getting there after Christmas Break then?” Chloe asked, the smallest smile playing on her lips.

Dominique pursed her lips in annoyance, before making a sucking sound and continuing on.

“The first last time we’ll ever walk up to the carriages at the start of a year. Happy?” Chloe giggled, grabbing her hand and dragging her along to the nearest carriage before everyone else left without them.

“I was never unhappy about it! And you know I don’t care about that stuff, I’m not a sentimental freak like you.” Chloe didn’t have to even pay proper attention to what Dominique was saying next to know that she didn’t like that statement.

“This isn’t me being sentimental! This is a sad situation and frankly you’re the freak if you can’t feel any sort of emotion about this being our final year here. Look at this place!”

Chloe let out only the tiniest of exasperated sighs, before turning around to look at what Dominique was gesturing to with her perfectly manicured hands. The sight of the castle through the heavily wooded area still took her breath away and so, of course, she cared about it.

Chloe Li was the daughter of Ken and Aubrey Li. They lived in Durham, Northern England. They were muggles. And unlike most situations, there were absolutely no signs pointing to Chloe having any kind of magical ability. She thought they still liked to think there was no magical ability there. It was as if they wanted her to one day suddenly be able to go to an average muggle school and then university and be a doctor one day. It didn’t matter of course that she still wanted to be a doctor, well, a healer, because if they couldn’t properly gloat about it to their own muggle friends then what was the point really?

So yes, Chloe cared. This was the place her parents would never understand and the thing that made her different to the rest of her family… She cared, but whether it was out of hate or love, she still couldn’t be sure.

“Yeah,” Chloe said after a while, bringing out an affectation of sentimentality. Dominique seemed to buy it.

“You have to promise that we take absolutely loads of photos, so we can both have copies.” Dominique practically begged, as they approached a man who seemed to be checking people off a list. Well, his quill was hovering in the air and filling it all out by itself as he simply stood there.

“Scratch that: A _materialistic_ , sentimental freak.” Dominique nudged Chloe in the ribs for that, giggling as she did so. They approached the man, ready to state who they were, but Dominique was more interested in the fact that it definitely seemed like he was a member of staff, but his face did not make it seem that way.

She noticed his warm skin, his forest coloured eyes being framed by his cute oversized glasses, his freckled perfectly sized nose and the way all those things made her feel. She hadn’t even noticed that he was taller than her; something completely rare for the 6’1 female.

“You’re a professor?” Dominique stated with no pause for thought of whether it was really an acceptable thing to say to an actual Professor. Chloe snorted as they continued to stand around in silence for a little while.

The Professor coughed.

“Yes, new here for Astronomy – Mr. Smith is my name.” There was more silence, as Dominique hadn’t really planned what to say to that. All she knew was that she was doing Astronomy, which for once didn’t seem like the worst decision she had ever made, as she would get to look at that not a day over twenty-two face.

“Chloe Li and this is Dominique Weasley.” Mr. Smith was certainly flustered by the way Dominique continued to stare at him, but he checked to make sure the quill was still marking away.

Dominique had a problem. A problem that no matter how hard she tried to shake, it would appear in new, ugly ways and that problem was wanting what she couldn’t have. Or, in other words, envy. She wanted Victoire’s life, she wanted Molly’s gifted brain, she wanted to be not on edge like Chloe was able to be, Rose’s likeability, Esmeralda’s ability to not get starstruck on guys and that brought Dominique right back here.

She couldn’t describe this feeling that she had whilst looking at Mr. Smith, but she wanted to feel it all the time. She was lusting after a teacher; surely these were new heights in wanting what she couldn’t have. A little voice told her to stop this nonsense now, and a much louder voice told her she was doomed.

“Ah, another Weasley,” He said, fumbling for something to do to stop the awkwardness he felt at having his soon-to-be student staring at him. “Well, uhm, get on the train… I mean carriage then. It’s about to leave.”

“Okay, well, see you later.” Dominique practically ran into the horseless carriage and hit her head in the process. She rubbed her head, never having felt quite as inadequate as she did right now. Dominique wasn’t the type of person who bumped into things, she was cool and collected, not clumsy.

After getting onto the carriage, she was greeted with the presence of Fred, James and Louis, her brother, or as she called them collectively ‘The Terrible Trio’ (or TTT for short). She held her head in pain, staring at them with a resigned scowl as they clearly considered ways to laugh at her for her momentary clumsiness.

“Don’t.” She snapped, as she saw James open his mouth to say something. He closed his mouth again, a laugh escaping him.

“Oh, shit, Dom, are you okay?” Chloe asked, her voice a mixture of confusion and concern as she hopped into the carriage as well. Dominique nodded, not prepared to say anything else for the rest of the duration of the carriage ride, which pretty much sucked for Chloe as she then saw who was sitting there – James Potter.

“Hi guys,” She said with a barely passable smile, looking at Fred and Louis only.

“Hey,” She was pretty sure they all said it to her, but all she heard was James saying it and it angered her that she noticed it. She refused to look up at him.

Nobody said anything as they waited for the carriage to leave, the atmosphere growing more awkward by the second.

“Nobody’ll notice it, Dom,” Fred said, which earned him a glare from Dominique herself.

“Yeah, it’s not noticeable,” Louis chirped in, more because he knew how self-conscious his sister actually was.

“Only noticeable if you look at it really,” James mused, pursing his lips as if he was examining the injury very intently. “And I mean it’s your face… How many people really look at faces these days?”

Chloe would have liked to include herself in the not looking at James Potter’s face category, but at that she had to look up just to see if he was smirking. Unfortunately for her, he was.

“Shut up.” Dominique stated bluntly, turning around in her seat as the carriage finally started to move.

She stared out the back window, feeling extremely sorry for herself, but also extremely lustful.

 

_News Travels_

 

“That whole carriage ride was inspiring… I feel my mind has physically expanded with the possibilities of tricks, I mean gifts, to give Dominique this year.” James said putting his arms around Fred and Louis. Dominique and Chloe could be seen running around the corner to the bathrooms to sort out the reddening (most likely early bruise) on Dominique’s face.

“Worse than Incident: Inflatable Tongue?” Fred asked in wonder. James snapped his fingers, nodding excitedly as he did so.

“Definitely better than that; that was an amateur’s game. This year we’ll push the boundaries.” Louis felt like he falling behind in this conversation and so removed James’ arm from around his shoulder which paused their walking.

“What kind of boundaries? How big are these ideas you’ve got?” He asked, not failing to notice the falling faces.

James pulled his crestfallen face into a more optimistic smile. “Big. Very big… You know, the biggest.”

“You have no ideas then yet?”

“No, but that’s why I’ve got you two; you’ll help me meld my thoughts into something extremely clever.” James explained, Fred nodding in agreement at every single bit of that sentence.

“And I’ll be in as long as it’s not all directed at Dom.”

“It won’t, we love Dom.”

“And that’s because she’s family.”

“Exactly.”

“And she’s my –,” Louis was shut up by two little hands covering his eyes.

“Guess who!”

“Jeez, if you can’t guess this then I think you’ll both have to re-think your thing.” James commented, rolling his eyes at the overbearing cuteness that was the relationship of Louis and Felicity, or mainly that of Felicity.

“Leave you to it, Lou-lou.” Fred said in a similar tone to James, ruffling Louis’ hair before him and James did just leave him to it.

Felicity removed her hands and jumped round to face him. She giggled, like she did a lot of the time, before giving Louis a little peck on the lips.

“How has your Summer been?” She asked, grabbing her hand so she could hold it tightly.

Louis let out a laugh, rubbing the back of his head. “You remember seeing me two weeks ago, right?”

“Two weeks ago! So much could have happened since then, silly.” She tucked a piece of her dusty blonde hair behind her ear, as she waited for him to respond.

“Nothing that I didn’t leave out of my letters though.” He reminded, giving her hand a small, reassuring squeeze.

“But I like hearing you tell me all about it.”

“Okay, well let’s see. Uhm… Dominique just managed to injure herself, and –,”

“She also managed to make Gertrude cry again.” Felicity added on, which made Louis grimace slightly.

“Again? Maybe this says more about Gertrude than Dom.”

Felicity nodded slowly. “She told her that if she changed her hair over Summer to make her nose seem slimmer, then it really didn’t help and she should go back to how it was.”

“That could be seen as helpful?” Louis asked, but the pain in his voice made it obvious that he was finding it difficult to see the helpfulness in that.

“I wasn’t there, so I can’t really say how it sounded; I’m just saying maybe she deserved an injury.” Louis turned to look down at his feet then and Felicity’s face grew panicked that she might have said the wrong thing. “As long as it’s not too bad? Not so bad, right?”

“Nah, she’ll be fine.” He looked back up, but away from Felicity’s face. He saw Esme riding into the Great Hall on Albus’ back. He didn’t look happy about it all and kept writhing around, trying to fight her off, but she kept hitting his face when he did that.

“I’m doing this until you apologize, Potter!”

“When you get off me I will, Gremler!”  

Albus swung himself wildly around in a circle in a last ditch attempt to get Gremler off his back. She let out a wild shriek, which soon turned into heinous laughter, as she still found herself stronger than Albus and victoriously remained on his back. Rose rushed behind them, ‘shh’-ing them as much as she could without going above their racquet.

Louis stood in amused silence. “Back to normal then.”

“Amazing that she’s still acting like that when she’s supposed to be in a relationship now.” Felicity commented with a small shrug, showing it was just a passing thought. This comment definitely got Louis’ attention though.

“How come you already know?” He wanted to know, Felicity raised her eyebrows.

“It’s Hogwarts, news travels fast; whether you want it to or not.”

She pulled on his arm, so that he would follow her to finally enter the Great Hall. He couldn’t physically take a step further though as Lorcan Scamander, Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team walked past, with only a small nod that boys tend to use as a way of greeting. Nothing else.

“Oh, hi Lorcan!” Felicity excitedly blabbered, waving at him as he continued to glide past them.

Louis thought Lorcan was regarding him with his eyes, not Felicity though, but perhaps that was in his head. And in his head is where those kind of thoughts needed to stay, not like the last day of term last school year.

He certainly could never repeat those thoughts again. Unless he wanted that news to travel fast.

“Bet you don’t know who it is she’s seeing though.” He asked, once Lorcan had finally moved a safe distance away.

“Kyle Hedley, obviously.”

 

_Overwhelmed_

 

“Taylor Fellows… Gryffindor!”

Rose excitedly clapped and cheered along with the rest of her house for the next new arrival. Everyone else lacked her general enthusiasm though, especially Esmeralda, who had her elbow propped up for her head to rest in and a bit of hair in her mouth for her to chew on.

“Right, is that the last kid who needs to go through the ritual?” She asked, not bothering to look at the front of the Hall to confirm this for herself.

“Three more and counting.” Esmeralda breathed a sigh of relief at these words spoken from Albus.

“Fuck Merlin, I’m hungry.” Rose turned away from gleefully looking at the Sorting Hat ceremony, to give Esmeralda her best admonishing look.

“Please, Esme, there are little ones sitting around us here, including my brother.” She pointed to the seat next to Esme that was filled by a hunched over Hugo.

“Oh please, he’s taking about as much notice of this as James and Fred are over there.” Esme pointed with her little finger to where James and Fred seemed to be animatedly whispering about something. Esme continued on in a bored manner, “And why is that, little Hugo?”

No response came from Hugo, so Esme happily continued on.

“Ah, because he is finishing off his Summer homework. Guessing he got someone, maybe Lily, to lend it to him earlier.” She finished off, a small smile on her face as she knew this would rile Rose up.

“Uh… Excuse me, Hugo Weasley!” She whispered in a voice strained with anger. Hugo paid no attention to this, however, as he continued to furiously write. Rose sighed, leaning over Esmeralda to slap her brother around the head.

“OUCH!” Hugo shouted.

“Shh… Show some respect for the ceremony and stop cheating on your homework right in front of all your professors, unless you want to get detention within an hour of being back here?” Rose continued on in the same strained whisper.

“They can’t see from all the way over there.” Hugo scoffed, shaking his head and turning back to his work.

“But I can and what would improve my standing for the running of Head Girl for next year more than turning my own brother in to the authorities?” Rose asked with narrowed eyes and a victorious smile.

“Okay, calm down, Death Eater.” Albus said, laughing at Rose’s sudden turn to extremism.

“It’s okay, she wouldn’t anyway.” Hugo immediately dismissed.

“Hmm… I wouldn’t be too sure, Hugo, look at that scary, demented look in her eyes right now.” Esme mused, as all three of them examined Rose’s face. Esme removed her head from her hand to pat her best friend on the shoulder. “Seriously, let’s put Molly back at the Ravenclaw table where she belongs, okay?”

Rose finally smiled, shaking her head.

“Yeah, I’m just getting a bit… overwhelmed?” Rose questioned herself, with a shrug of her shoulders.

Esme laughed. “Overwhelmed? By the same events we have to sit through every year?”

Rose half-smiled. She couldn’t really explain it, she hadn’t explained it to anyone over the whole Summer, so it hadn’t even felt real, but now being back at Hogwarts it definitely was, she knew that now. And the empty presence at the Slytherin table with the only person she could possibly discuss it with wasn’t even there.

It made a lot more than just overwhelmed.

Esme continued to stare at Rose with slight concern though this soon stopped once the ceremony and welcoming speech had clearly ended and the food had arrived.

“Thank fuck!” Esme excitedly grabbed as much food as she could. She gave a guilty smile at her word choice with bits of bread already in her mouth. “Sorry.”

Rose shook her head, smiling. She looked once more over at the Slytherin table, but with still no sign, she started pouring herself some Pumpkin juice.

“Why aren’t you sitting with Kyle anyway, Gremlin?” Albus asked, getting back to the important matters in life.

Esme heaved a massively, overdramatic sigh. “Because we’re in a relationship not in some Unbreakable Vow to be together at all times.”

During this conversation, the noise in the Hall got quieter, something that Rose was happy to write off as just people contentedly eating, but then whispers began to fill the space and this got her curious.

Walking through the door as if he was completely on time for this event was the missing member of the Slytherin table – Scorpius Malfoy.

Rose subconsciously sat up a little straighter, staring straight at him. Her cheeks were most probably flushed with anger at seeing his arrogant self sauntering in here late, so she looked away as quickly as she could.

“I don’t understand why being late is resulting in a massive whisperfest.”

Albus and Esme were both staring at Scorpius as well.

“His face…” Albus said, drifting off.

“What’s so great about his face?” Rose asked, her eyes betraying her and moving back to examine him.

Her face fell from a snide look to genuine concern as she saw what was so great; his face looked like he had been scratched by some kind of monster as four vivid scars climbed its way down from the corner of his left eye to the bottom of his lips. She now stared unabashedly, wondering what the hell had happened to Draco and who gave him the right to continue walking down the Hall as if he was posing for Witch Weekly cover photo?


	2. Ridiculous Notions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks, timid sexual tension and Merlin blasphemy. 
> 
> Took a while to add this I know, but I'm slow. Let me know what you think!

_Dandruff_

“Hugo!” He reluctantly stopped, letting his friend, Xavier York, continue the walk to Gryffindor as he knew the embarrassment of this next conversation would be too much.

“What?” He moaned, as Rose enthusiastically began to match his stride.

“As I’m sure you’re aware this is a very important year for me,” She began, which was greeted with a sigh from Hugo, clearing her throat before continuing on. “It’s my first year of doing NEWTs and I need to make a great impression to get Head Girl next year.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Well, ‘yeah, yeah’, I would think you would want to help me out a bit by actually doing your homework and being on your best behavior -,”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve said all this already and Mum said as well actually and even Dad said I should do it if I didn’t want you nagging me all year about it.”

“Dad said it?” Rose asked, a sense of pride filling up inside her as she ignored the reason why. Hugo gave a shrug in response, so Rose pushed on. 

“So you will try your very best then?”

“No can do. Sorry sis, I’ve got big plans this year.”

“What? You have plans? _Big_ plans? Well, we’ll see what our parents have to say -”

“Weasley.” The voice was so unexpected and nearby that Rose actually let out a shriek and threw a hand to her mouth. She saw Scorpius Malfoy standing in the doorway of the empty Potions classroom, an eyebrow cocked up at her reaction and even though he was not smiling, there was still amusement etched in his face. What was so much more interesting about his face at this current moment though, to Rose, was the black eye that was even more intense in colour and shape at this close a proximity and the scratch marks running down his face looked fresher than on previous sight.

Remembering herself, Rose quickly turned back to Hugo in an attempt to pretend she was too busy to speak to Malfoy, but Hugo was already taking this opportunity to stalk off.  

“Hugo,” She quickly realized that he had gone too far ahead though and so made a final farewell through a threat. “We haven’t finished discussing this!”

When she finally turned back around to Malfoy, he had gone further into the classroom, like he was just expecting Rose to follow him in there… And she cursed herself for doing just that.

She gave a swift check of the hallway and after being suitably happy that it was far too busy for anyone to actually pay attention to what she was doing, she followed. He picked up an ingredient off the desk that looked like a Jobberknoll feather to Rose; she resisted the urge to start up the weirdest conversation about the feather just to kill the silence and thought of a much more suitable topic to bring up.

“What’s happened to -,”

“Have you told anyone?”

Rose froze with wide eyes as he spoke to her. It was actually terrifying how he changed from such a casual demeanor to one so full of intensity. She shook it off and focused on getting her answer out. 

“No…” She stated slowly, before nervously asking, “Have you?”

“Of course not, like I want to tell anyone I spent time with you.”

“Oh, you mean like now?”

“This is entirely different.” He gestured with one finger the space between them as if that was a suitable response to her question.

Rose continued to keep eye contact with him, insisting she would win just one solitary round of a staring competition with Scorpius, but yet again she had to eventually look away.

“I think we should tell someone – anyone – because we don’t even know what it means!”

“No.”

“Malfoy!”

“Weasley, you said it yourself we don’t know what it means. It could be anything, so let’s leave it.”

 

*****                

 

_Maybe he won’t be there when I look up_ , Rose thought to herself. Of course it was somewhat logical (with a touch of optimism) that he had left in the last two minutes that she had been looking at her work, but it was also highly unlikely.

She slowly raised her head again, pretending to simply be deep in thought, just to see him still sitting there.

_Ughhhhhhhh_ , Rose thought and her face was probably displaying this thought process as well. She stared him down, as he glanced up from his own work to meet her eyes with his signature smirk. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep up this staring match, she quickly broke the silence.

“You don’t even like the library!” She whispered venomously, as he adjusted himself ever so collectedly in his seat.

“I enjoy the quiet.” Scorpius raised his eyebrows at her to signal that she was very much ruining that for him right now.

Rose shook her head, contemplating just resuming the silence so that she could prove that she wasn’t always blabbering away and being irritating, like he obviously thought she was, but then again… he was being extremely irritating at this point as well.

“Okay, just give it up! What did I miss out on my essay that you included to give you a perfect score?”

The seconds it took for Scorpius to reply were particularly painful to Rose. It was as if the past four hours of torturing her - over the fact that Rose not only didn’t beat his score, but got less than him on this essay - were not enough.

“Dandruff.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dandruff. We were supposed to talk about all elements of our body that could be used in potions, right?”

“Yeah, and I… Oh!” Rose’s face was practically forming the perfect ‘O’ in this moment as she realized her monumental stupidity.

“Dandruff can be used instead of hair in Polyjuice Potion.”

“Yes, I know! You don’t need to explain it to me.”

“So why wouldn’t you put it in your essay?”

“It was an oversight, Malfoy. This doesn’t reflect badly on my intelligence.”

“From my viewpoint I would suggest otherwise.”

“Okay, you’ve had your fun, isn’t it time to go?”

“And miss you going over your one silly mistake for hours on end until you send yourself crazy with the thought of other mistakes you made years ago? I could never.”

“Fine, then it’s my time to go.”

Rose hated that she was now actually thinking about that one time in third year when she miscalculated how much… No, she would stop herself in that train of thought.

She gathered her things together and practically quickstepped her way past Scorpius, so she could get away from him.

Out in the corridor however she could hear his footsteps behind her.

“Can we just admit now that I’m better at Potions than you?”

“No!” Rose turned her head dramatically around to face him as she shouted this. She did not slow down her pace though, if anything it quickened.

“You’re just fine at Potions, but I’m brilliant at it.”

Rose did not reply, but let out a loud groan of despair.

“Weasley!” Rose was shocked by the fact that Scorpius had caught up with her by this point and put out his arm against the wall just beside her, so that she was ultimately blocked.

“What?”

“Can you not admit it?”

“Why would I have to when you seemingly already know it’s true?”

“You know it’s true as well.”

“Stop with this whole intimidating thing before I get out my wand and…”

“Oh, I’m not trying to intimidate you, Weasley.”

“Well… you’re not anyway!”

“I just want to know how long it’ll actually take for you to admit that I’m better than you at something.”

“Will you leave me alone for the rest of the night if I do it? Will it make you happy, Malfoy?”

“Actually I kind of like the fact that you fight so hard to be better than me, it’s kind of the most attractive thing you’ve got going for you.”

If the next thing did not happen then Rose is still not quite sure how she would have reacted in that moment.

All that she knew was that this was the first time he said anything to her that wasn’t about who was doing better in classes and making fun of each other in the most childish of ways. In fact this was the first time he seemed to acknowledge that she was a girl who could be attractive.

And even if he was playing a massive joke on her, it turned on some sort of light in her.

But then the next thing did happen.

Scorpius must have heard something first, for he moved Rose closer to the wall and moved one of his hands in an up-and-down motion for her to quiet down. As Rose was not making any noise at all at this time she opened her mouth to say something in an outraged – not so quiet – voice, but then a loud, almost violent yell shut her up.

“You lost one of the recruits?”

It was coming from the next corridor over from them.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Who was it?”

“A Slytherin.”

“Told you should have gone for Malfoy.”

This brought Rose out of her stunned paralysis and she looked up at Scorpius with fright in her eyes. He wasn’t looking at her though; in fact he showed no recognition at his own name. She thought, maybe, he was just as scared as she was.

Next time the voices spoke, they were much softer, as if the momentary silence had given them time to calm down.

“Yes, you did, I-I’m sorry… What do we do now?”

“We do this again next year and we do it my way.”

“Yes, yes.”

The voices began to die down and footsteps were heard. Rose and Scorpius didn’t say anything for quite some time, just remained frozen in their positions.

Rose stared at Scorpius.

Scorpius stared at the floor.

Rose noticed Scorpius’ arm was still holding her shoulder.

Scorpius did not.

Eventually Scorpius pulled away and began to walk off.

“Scorpius?” Rose whispered violently, running after him. He didn’t slow down and so she reached out her arm to pull him by the wrist so he would come back to face her.

“What should we do?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, I do love it when you give me sensible ideas and -,” Rose paused in her stream of sarcasm. “You’re being serious?”

Scorpius slowly nodded, as if he was quickly coming to terms with the fact that Rose was about to lose it.

“What. The. Merlin. Would. Make. You. Think. That’s. Okay?”

“Weasley…”

“No, seriously? He said next year they’re doing the same, whatever they’re doing, and I think that was a student. I don’t know what student –,”

“Weasley.”

“A student and if they’re doing it again next year that could mean they’re in our year and this is terrifying. We have to do some-,”

“Rose.”

He stopped her pacing by just the use of her first name. She turned to look at him, panic the only thing that he could see in her eyes right in that moment. Panic and green.

“They said my name. Whatever it is that they were talking about, and trust me it’s probably some stupid prank, all I know is they said my name. We don’t know what they’re doing, it’s probably nothing, but I think we should leave it, okay?”

Rose was ready to say more. She had a lot more to say about this situation. She wasn’t ready to back down from this without a fight.

“Okay…”

And then Scorpius walked off without another word.

 

*****

 

“Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“You don’t need to keep telling me… I wouldn’t go behind your back like that.”

Scorpius hated it when she said things like that. His face displayed this annoyance as well and left Rose wondering what happened.

“What happened to your face? Is it something to do with that?”

“My girlfriend, well, ex-girlfriend now.”

It was common news that Scorpius had met Madeleine Brun at his family’s New Year’s Eve party when she and her family had traveled from France for it as her father and Scorpius’ used to work together. They were instantly attracted to each other and began a strange long-distance relationship that had shocked a lot of people. Scorpius possessing the ability to forge a relationship over letters? Extremely shocking!

They were supposed to be spending a lot of time together over the summer.

“Oh, what did you do, Malfoy?”

Scorpius let out a strange sound for him, a laugh. He shook his head.

“Of course you think I did something… She just – well, she realized I didn’t like her,” Rose hated the fact that her mind was instantly replaying what he said to her last year. “Anyway I better go.”

Rose sprang back in to action at this sentence, as Scorpius walked his way around Rose.

“That’s it? What? Are we just doing a monthly check-in session now to see if I’ve told anyone yet?”

“No, I trust you.”

And then he walked right out the door, leaving Rose alone again.

 

_Wrackspurts_

There was a speech being conducted in the Ravenclaw common room and this should have garnered more attention than the currently six devoted listeners - half of these being first years – but anyone being a Ravenclaw for more than a year was more than used to Dominique’s frequent ‘speeches’.

“Should I have made such a snap decision on Gertrude’s choice of hairstyle? Maybe not. But should she ask for an opinion on her hairstyle to anyone in the carriage, or in my case, walking past the carriage? Especially when she knows I am such an acclaimed fashion expert?” Here Dominique gave a subtle flick of her hair, as if to make the point clearer. “Absolutely not.”

“Weren’t you running to the bathroom with a massive mark on your face today?” Asked one of the listeners in a rather loud voice.

Louis, who was sitting a fair distance away from Dominique and only half-listening to what was going on, couldn’t help but chuckle at the silence that fell after this question was asked.

“What’s so funny?” Felicity Stock asked, looking up from her book with a quizzical expression on her face.

“Just Dom being Dom.” Felicity looked over her shoulder to see Dom speaking with far less conviction than just a few minutes earlier, before turning back around with a shake of her head and a tiny laugh.

“Well, she is the reason I expected our relationship to be drama-filled.” Felicity said with a hint of a smirk, which brought Louis’ attention completely back to his girlfriend.

“Oh, really now?” She let out a soft giggle, turning back to her book, as Louis shut that book for her.

“You think I’m dramatic?” He asked, pulling her chin up to look at him and she continued to giggle.

“No, I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out you weren’t like your sister.”

“And you still agreed to date me even though you thought I would be?” Louis asked, still playing at surprised.

“You were too cute to say no to!” She moved his hand from under her chin to hold it very tightly on the table.

“Lou-Lou, I’m really happy with our drama-free relationship and I love you very much.”

Louis was well-acquainted with Felicity’s routine and knew whenever she said she loved him, she had to lean in and kiss him on his nose. However as he waited with shut eyes the kiss never came.

“Oh… Hiya, Lorcan!” Felicity exclaimed in her usual flustered manner when Lorcan was about. Louis’ eyes snapped open at her sentence and he couldn’t control his hand from trying to escape from Felicity’s grip.

Lorcan, of course, looked completely composed, which frustrated Louis greatly, and didn’t say anything for a second as he calmly waited for Louis to struggle with what he should do.

“Hi,” Louis said after an excruciating silence.

“We need to discuss Quidditch.” Louis was too stunned to even respond to that. He was in awe with how Lorcan had such authority in his voice. He never really spoke unless he felt he had to and instead of this making him seem shy or excluding, it just made him look cool to Louis.

“Well, you can sit down, Lorcan.” Felicity said, practically ushering him into a chair and unable to keep the heart eyes glowing from her very being at him being around her. She loved Lorcan for the same reason as Louis – everyone knew him as just being very, very cool. If he was talking to you then it was like you were worth something.

“Or we can go over there?” Lorcan asked, gesturing behind him without turning away from his incredibly direct eye contact to the window that overlooked the Quidditch field.

“Oh.” Felicity said, realizing she wasn’t invited to the conversation.

“You’re Louisa Lott’s friend, right?” Lorcan asked, as a way of explanation. Louisa Lotts was a friend of Felicity’s and was on Hufflepuff’s Quidditch team.

“Of course, of course – you’re right. I’ll go to my dorm and you can have this table.” When nobody opposed this suggestion, Felicity hesitantly picked up her book. “Okay goodnight, Lorcan. Goodnight, Lou-Lou.”

And then Louis got his kiss on the nose.

Lorcan took the same seat as Felicity, which now felt uncomfortably close, and leaned back in it with crossed arms.

“What Quidditch stuff did you want to talk about then?” Louis finally managed to say, carefully keeping his eyes on the table.

“Nothing.”

“Okay…”

“I haven’t seen you since after the last game.”

Lorcan didn’t need to say anything else. It was clear to Louis that they were definitely going to be discussing that meeting and the awful thing that Louis had said. It was unspeakable and unthinkable to Louis now, but here they were about to have a conversation about it.

 

****

 

“Slytherin have won.”

Lorcan let the silence ring out in their tent, so the disappointment he felt in all six of them could resonate.

“We weren’t expecting that. Who should have won?” Nobody was quick to answer, but finally a few mumbled replies came in.

“Us.”

“No.”

Again silence rang out apart from the heavy breathing from nearly everyone as they tried to get their breath back from the intense game they had just been beaten in.

“Gryffindor should have, because we were shit today.”

The standings before this final Quidditch match were Gryffindor first, Ravenclaw second, Slytherin third and Hufflepuff last. The points were pretty close, but nobody really thought that Slytherin would be able to jump two spots to win the cup in the end.

“We have to win next year. I’m not accepting this defeat.”

Everyone in the Ravenclaw team had respect for Lorcan, because nobody loved the game like he did. He wasn’t a fan of the sport, he never went to see any professional matches or anything like that, but he loved being in the game; it was all he wanted to do. Everyone knew that Lorcan hadn’t ever won the cup since he had been on the team since second year – yes, second year because he is that good – and how much it would mean to him to actually win. So when everyone responded next, they all meant it.

“We will.”

Just for a second Lorcan displayed the fact that he was touched by their sudden turn in enthusiasm, but he managed to regain his composure quickly enough and gestured to the entrance.

“Okay, go.”

Louis stayed, because there had to be more that he could say to make this better. He felt like every moment in the relationship shared between him and Lorcan had been leading to this moment where he made him feel better, where he broke down the walls that nobody else could and where Lorcan showed him more affection than he showed the others. And he didn’t know why he needed that moment so badly.

“I’m sorry about today.”

“It’s fine, Louis.” Hearing him say his name like that should have been enough.

“We could have done better… If you want to talk tactics some time then I’m here. We can do it next year, I know –,”

“I do just want to be alone.”

At this point Lorcan turned around and stared right at Louis, so he could see how scared he looked. And why was Louis scared? He tried to have this conversation with Lorcan many times after losing matches, so what was different?

The truth was he had never seen Lorcan this damaged by it. Realization must have been setting in for Lorcan that he only had one year left to actually win. Louis had never wanted to make someone forget pain so badly before. He thought he could make him forget everything with a kiss and that was why he was currently staring at Lorcan with so much fear – he didn’t want to think such a thing.

“What’s the matter?” Lorcan finally asked with a note of concern in his voice.

“I just wish you weren’t so upset.”

Lorcan extended himself to his full height at this point and that made Louis feel even smaller and with more reason to be scared. Lorcan’s mouth moved in to a half smile as he contemplated the fact that Louis might actually care that much about him.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it.”

Lorcan took a step closer and Louis could feel his breath growing heavier as he tried not to move.

“Why?” Lorcan asked again, this time in a soft voice, almost a whisper.

“Because… I like you.”

It finally seemed to set in on Louis on what he was saying. As soon as that last word escaped him, he marched out of the room, hating himself and not knowing what on earth was happening to him.

All the while Lorcan stood there with an almost bemused expression on his face.

 

****

 

“Look about that day… I was tired from the game and my head was just a bit funny -,”

“Maybe it was Wrackspurts?”

“A what?”

Lorcan laughed and Louis found himself laughing too out of confusion.

“I’ll tell you some other time.” He started to stand up as if that was the end of that conversation and that left Louis feeling even more confused. What was the point in this conversation?

“Okay?”

“You do like people who are your friends though.”

A final smile was exchanged and Lorcan walked away.

_No more_ , Louis told himself, _no more_.

 

_Crazy_

“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie!”

Rose didn’t have time to react to the loud greeting she received on entering the Gryffindor common room, as almost instantly after shouting this she was attacked with a hug by Esmeralda. She noticed that a few other people, especially her family members, seemed to be perking up from her entrance.

“What did I do?” Rosie panicked, as Albus practically hurled himself in her direction.

“What didn’t you do?” Esmeralda asked in a highly suggestive tone, pulling away from the hug to raise one of her eyebrows. Rose pulled a disgusted expression at this, turning her head the other way to find James ushering some younger students around.

“Something with Scorpius Malfoy I’ve heard.” Fred said loudly into Rose’s ear, who she totally missed from the small crowd swarming around her, and so she let out a loud-ish squawk in surprise.

“Ew. No. What?”

Rose made her way through by making a gap between Albus and Esmeralda, both of whom were more than happy to be separated from each other, and made her way to the sofa.

“Don’t deny it. Hugo told us.” Albus proudly said. Hugo sat on the sofa Rose was making her way to, so she growled at the sight of him now.

“Really?” She asked, not hiding her outrage very well, plopping down in the free space at the end of the sofa.

“No!”

“Not really, he told Lucy and me, but it was more the fact that Xavier told Roxanne that started spreading around.” Lily said, nodding slowly as she tried to remember the events accurately.

“See?” Hugo asked, leaning forward in his seat to see Rose’s expression.

“Fine, I guess I can’t blame Xavier and his harboring love for Rox.”

“Shut up, that’s not true!” Hugo exclaimed in disgust, slumping back into the sofa.

“Uh, it’s totally true.”

“Totally,” James supplied, a few other people nodded at this. “Anyway back to the actual thing going on here.”

“Spill.” Esme immediately demanded, squatting down in front of Rose to intensely stare in her eyes. “A quiet, darkened classroom, huh? Did he pin you up against the blackboard and bite –,”

“Woah, under aged wizards standing her, Es.” James said, whilst Albus kicked Esme in her back. Rose just sat further back in the sofa looking like she wanted the entire floor to swallow her up whole. There was apparently a room that did that in Hogwarts. She would have to find it one day.

“Apologies, I just got excited.”

“Yeah, save it for the new boyfriend.” Albus grumbled.

“Oh, I will.” Esme turned around to flash him a massive grin.

“Back on point,” Rose snapped. “All of you, including people I’ve never spoken to before, are surrounding me over some obscure, crazy, ridiculous, flabbergasting and crazy notion that I was kissing Scorpius Malfoy?”

A silence fell, as it so often did when Rose went off on a delightful monologue full of anger and teenage emotions. Albus restrained himself from pointing out the fact she said ‘crazy’ twice, as James went on to laugh.

“Of course not. We want to know what’s happened to the face? I’m sure Dominique was grateful someone came in with a worse face than hers, but… yeah. Face? Bruised? Scratched? Why?”

Rose’s anger subsided. She shook her head, standing up slowly.

“Oh.”

“Personally I’m hoping it’s the Giant Squid. That would benefit James and I the most.” Fred openly said. Esmeralda snorted at that, not having to tell him that he wasn’t supposed to be quite so honest when surrounded by all the people who placed bets on what it was.

“I’m hoping it’s Daddy Malfoy. That would definitely benefit a lot of us.” Esmeralda growled back at Fred.

“Well, sorry, I don’t know.” Rose said, making her way through the disappointed crowd to get to the stairs that led up to her dorm. All she could think was that sometimes kissing Scorpius Malfoy didn’t seem like the _most_ ridiculous notion.

“You don’t know? I spent good money on this!” Albus shouted in outrage.

“Well that’s a lie. Nothing’s good when it’s in association to you.” There was a short outbreak of kerfuffle as Albus hit Esme in the back at this comment and kicked him in the shins.

“What am I supposed to do with all these bets if you don’t know?” Rose turned around when she reached the bottom of the stairs to face James and the others.

“Give it back?”

Students that looked like they were going to head somewhere else, started making a neat line in front of James in the hopes that they would at least be getting their money back. James stared at his cousin with a burning hatred that Rose was slightly concerned would kill her if she looked at it for much longer. With that thought in her mind she turned back around to head up the stairs.

“Aha!” Rose shrieked for the third time that evening.

“How on the life of Merlin did you get there?” Rose asked with a shortage of breath to a cackling Esme.

“Walked around you?”

Suddenly there was a poke in her back. She jumped again, turning slightly to find Albus there.

“Will people please stop scaring me today?”

“So why were you with Malfoy?” Albus asked.

“What?”

“Come on, there must be a reason you were there with him?” Esme asked, causing Rose to feel slightly dizzy from all the turning she was expected to do in this three-way conversation.

“Not really.”

“Unless you really were making out with Scorp?” Esme continued to tease, really raising her eyebrows this time.

“You can tell us!”

Rose felt like she was being offered a choice. Tell the truth or tell an absolutely crazy lie that would mean she also got to keep her promise to Scorpius. That seemed like a favourable option.

“Fine, I was…” Rose struggled with her words, scrunching up her eyes so she couldn’t see the eager expressions on Esme and Albus’ faces. “I was offering my tutoring help.”

“What that’s it?”

“Yeah, in Potions.”

There was a long pause as Rose waited to see if they would buy it or not and she really hoped they did right now.

“Boring.” Esme concluded, yawning.

“Bedtime?” Rose asked, desperate to move the conversation on.

“Let’s. Night, stupid.”

Albus stayed at the bottom of the stairs as they began to ascend. His face screwed up in concentration.

“Wait, isn’t Scorpius really good at Potions?”


End file.
